Peer tutoring in classrooms to be a reality

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 1

Classrooms are all set for radical shifts in learning with students acting as tutors to other students under the supervision of teachers, who will have the freedom to try new models of instruction.

This has been made possible by the National Education Policy, 2020, which approves the use of the revolutionary peer tutoring model in elementary school classrooms.

Tried and tested the world over, peer tutoring has been used to great success in the western world, where research lists tremendous benefits of the model where students learn from one another.

The peer tutoring method of learning has been found to improve students’ academic scores, their interpersonal ties and their levels of confidence and motivation.

“The concept is based on the age-old saying – to teach is to learn twice,” says one of the authors of NEP, 2020.

Peer tutoring as a reform finds place in the new policy to address the massive scale of poor learning outcomes among elementary school students.

The policy says, “To address the scale of learning crisis, all viable methods will be explored to support teachers in this all-important mission. Studies around the world show one-on-one peer tutoring to be extremely effective for learning — not just for the learner, but also for the tutor. Thus peer tutoring can be taken up as a voluntary and joyful activity for fellow students under the supervision of trained teachers and by taking due care of safety aspects.”

Documented studies on peer tutoring show while children learn by teaching one another the teachers also benefit.

“Teachers benefit by an increased opportunity to individualise instruction, increased facilitation of inclusion/mainstreaming, and opportunities to reduce inappropriate behaviours,” a 2009 research says.

The model works by bringing students of different skills and abilities together and get them to learn from one another.

For instance, one student could be good with numbers and another with language.

If the two learn from one another, outcomes improve, peer tutoring reviews worldwide have shown.

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